The Kirkus Prize is one of the richest literary awards in the world, with a prize of $50,000 bestowed annually to authors of fiction, nonfiction and young readers’ literature. It was created to celebrate the 81 years of discerning, thoughtful criticism Kirkus Reviews has contributed to both the publishing industry and readers at large. Books that earned the Kirkus Star with publication dates between November 1, 2014, and October 31, 2015, are automatically nominated for the 2015 Kirkus Prize, and the winners will be selected on October 23, 2015, by an esteemed panel composed of nationally respected writers and highly regarded booksellers, librarians and Kirkus critics.

Jailed for a crime he didn't commit with no hope of ever being freed, Michael Morton has returned to society with a great deal of grace. He recounts his story in his new book Getting Life, and with us on Kirkus TV.

KIRKUS REVIEW

A man falsely convicted of murdering his wife shares his story.

Already the subject of several articles, TV segments and a documentary, Morton chronicles his remarkable 25-year ordeal in a sweeping autobiography. The author’s family relocated from California to Texas when Morton was a teenager in the early 1980s, and while in college, he fell in love with and married Christine Kirkpatrick, a kindhearted, gregarious girl with whom he would conceive a son. The day after his 32nd birthday in 1986, the author arrived home to discover his wife bludgeoned to death. Compounding his grief was an investigator who soon positioned Morton as a suspect, even though his brother-in-law found some “overlooked” bloodstained evidence and his son provided an eyewitness confession about seeing the real murderer. The author ably demonstrates the heinous result of a bungled investigation by police detectives desperate to collar a perpetrator and aggressively angling to tie Morton to his wife’s grisly murder. With few leads to go on, Morton became the lead suspect, and his personal depiction of the prosecution and ensuing laborious trial proceedings is riveting. More than a month after the crime, he was arrested, convicted by jury trial and sentenced to serve a life sentence in prison. As unsettling as his jail time was, Morton’s chronicle of his time there is a vicarious penitentiary tour for inquisitive readers. The author kept a diary during this time and remained surprisingly free of anger and acrimony, one day sure he would exonerate himself. His plight for freedom was bolstered by DNA evidence presented by a pair of humanitarian attorneys, including one from the Innocence Project. The conviction of both a misguided prosecutor who suppressed evidence and the real murderer, Mark Alan Norwood, allowed Morton, now almost 60, the freedom to remarry and live as a liberated man.

Kirkus Interview

March 3, 2015

A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. He lives alone, his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history, and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. But when a mysterious package appears at the bookstore, its unexpected arrival gives Fikry the chance to make his life over—and see everything anew. “Zevin writes characters who grow and prosper,” our reviewer writes, “in a narrative that is sometimes sentimental, sometimes funny, sometimes true to life and always entertaining.”
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Kirkus Interview

February 17, 2015

With shades of The Hunger Games, Ender’s Game, and Game of Thrones, Pierce Brown’s genre-defying Red Rising hit the ground running. The sequel, Golden Son, continues the saga of Darrow, a rebel battling to lead his oppressed people to freedom. As a Red, Darrow grew up working the mines deep beneath the surface of Mars, enduring backbreaking labor while dreaming of the better future he was building for his descendants. But the Society he faithfully served was built on lies. Darrow’s kind have been betrayed and denied by their elitist masters, the Golds—and their only path to liberation is revolution. “Stirring—and archetypal—stuff,” our reviewer writes.
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